Team GB men’s hockey head coach Jason Lee was ‘very proud’ of his team despite suffering a narrow 1-0 defeat to reigning Olympic silver medallists the Netherlands.
The Great Britain squad had entered in to the late evening game full of confidence following an excellent 4-2 victory over Pakistan in the opening match of their Olympic campaign and the high quality performance levels were once again replicated.
The noisy and colourful Dutch support in the crowd was kept largely quiet by a solid first half performance from Team GB who restricted the Dutch to no more than a handful of opportunities. At the other end Team GB’s forwards worked tirelessly to create openings and won three penalty corners, which passed unconverted.
When the Dutch occasionally broke through the British defensive ranks they found Scottish goalkeeper Alistair McGregor in inspirational form. Even the usually unstoppable Dutch penalty corner specialist Taeke Taekema was unable to find a way past McGregor in the first period as the half ended with the score tied at 0-0.
After the break the intensity of the match rose as both teams probed for the decisive breakthrough. Sadly for Team GB it was the Dutch who took their opportunity. Predictably it was a penalty corner drag flick by Taekema which sealed the narrow victory for the Dutch in the 63rd minute.
Lee was in philosophical mood at the post match press conference as he acknowledged that “The Netherlands are one of the best teams in the world and we are trying to push up to that kind of standard. I think the match reflected that. We played a game based on high quality and hard work and we’ve made great strides forward.”
Vice captain Glenn Kirkham echoed his coach’s comments, “We showed tonight that we can cope with one of the best teams in world hockey. We closed out their main attacking threats effectively and limited their penalty corner chances as we were aware of the danger of Taekema.”
Midfielder Barry Middleton, who plays his club hockey in the Netherlands, was disappointed with the result but looking ahead said “We can take belief from this match with the knowledge that we can live with a top world team.”
Coach Lee was certain he would have no problem in picking the players up from this defeat. Next up for Team GB is South Africa on Friday and Canada on Sunday, before a potentially decisive final pool match against Austrlalia next Tuesday.
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